land and in the United States, is that the gist of the civil cause of action is the actual damage done to the plaintiff, not the agreement or confederation against him.

Consult: Wright, Law of Criminal Conspiracies (London, 1873; Philadelphia, 1887); Bishop, New Commentaries on the Criminal Law (Boston, 1900); and Commentaries on the Non-Contract Law (Boston); also consult the Encyclopædia of the Laws of England (London, 1897). CONSTABLE, kun'stå-b'l (OF. conestable, Fr. connétable, from ML. conestabulus, comestabulus, comistabuli, constable, from Lat. comes stabuli, count of the stable). (1) An officer of great dignity and authority in the Eastern Roman Empire, whence the office passed, with varying functions but no loss of authority, to the western nations of Europe. The Constable of France, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy and chief arbitrator in chivalry, became the most powerful officer and dignitary in the State after the King, and, because of the danger to the Crown that lurked in its greatness, the office was abolished by Richelieu in 1627. The dignity was revived by Napoleon Bonaparte, but again abolished after the restoration of the monarchy. Across the Channel the office existed with similar functions, under the title of Lord High Constable of England, but it never attained to the authority which attended it in France, and it was suspended for reasons of economy by Henry VIII. It is now filled by temporary appointment on great occasions of state, as the coronation of the monarch, etc. Formerly the Lord High Constable, in conjunction with the Earl Marshal of England, held the courts of chivalry, or honor, and the courts martial of the kingdom. But the former jurisdiction has now completely lapsed, and courts martial are held by the ordinary military authorities. The court of the constable and marshal, therefore, while still nominally in existence, is practically obsolete. The office of constable still survives in Scotland, where it has become an hereditary dignity of the earls of Errol, but shorn of its former authority.

(2) The office of constable also existed in England with the signification of warden or keeper of certain royal castles and fortified towns. In a few cases it long survived as an hereditary office, and in some others it is filled by royal appointment. Of the latter class are the constables of the Tower of London and of Windsor and Dover castles.

(3) The peace officer whom we know as constable is the petty constable of English law, an officer of great antiquity-so called to distinguish him from the High Constables of Hundreds, created by the Statute of Winchester, 13 Edward I. (1285). The office has in recent years lost much of its importance in England, the institution of county and borough police having de prived it of most of its functions. In most of the United States, however, outside the cities, the constable continues to be the principal officer of the peace. As such he is invested with large powers of arresting, imprisoning, breaking open houses, executing civil and criminal process, and often with limited judicial functions. His duties are generally defined by statute. In cities, as in English boroughs and counties, his functions have generally been transferred to the police (q.v.). See PEACE; SHERIFF; and consult: Bacon, New Abridgment of the Law, title

Constable (any edition); Dalton, The Country Justice: Containing the Practice, Duty, and Power of the Justices of the Peace.

A

CONSTABLE, ARCHIBALD (1774-1827). Scottish publisher, born in Fifeshire. He became famous for the sumptuousness of his editions and the liberality shown toward his employees. He published nearly all of Sir Walter Scott's works, and his failure in 1826, with that of Ballantyne & Co., involved Scott for £120,000. Constable became publisher of the Scots' Magazine (1801), and of the Edinburgh Review (1802), and owner of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1812), which he enlarged. He edited the Chronicle of Fife (1810), and wrote a Memoir of George Heriot (1822). Consult: Constable, Archibald Constable and His Literary Correspondents (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1873); and Lockhart, Life of Scott (7 vols., London, 1838). CONSTABLE, HENRY (1562-1613). An English poet. He was graduated from Saint John's College, Cambridge, in 1580; became a Roman Catholic, and therefore found it best to October 9, 1613. He wrote many pretty pastorals live mostly on the Continent. He died at Liège, and sonnets to Diana, sometimes marred by conceits, and decadent in tone. His one independent reprinted in Arber's English Garner, 1877). He publication was Diana (1592; enlarged, 1594; contributed four pastorals to England's Helicon (1600), and sonnets to other collections. Sixteen "Spiritual Sonnets," attributed to Constable, were first printed by T. Park in Heliconia (1815).

CONSTABLE, JOHN (1776-1837). An English landscape painter, the founder of modern landscape art. He was born on June 11, 1776, in East Bergholt, Suffolk, the son of a wealthy miller. His father intended him for the clergy, and afterwards tried him as a miller, but the youth's taste was all for art. He received his first instruction from a local amateur named Dunthorne, with whom he painted the scenes about his native home, always in the open air. In 1795 he went to London in order to study painting, but was recalled soon afterwards. In 1799 he returned to London and entered the Academy School, where he received instruction from Farrington and Reinagle. He was greatly impressed with the works of Ruysdael in the National Gallery. At first he attempted portraits and historical subjects, according to the custom of the day, but in 1803, weary of studying pictures and of acquiring truth second-hand, he returned to East Bergholt. From this time he painted landscapes from nature only, passing at least the summer months entirely in the country near his home.

His work, however, was too revolutionary and original to become popular in his native land, although he found a few devoted friends who believed in him and bought his pictures. Among these were Sir George Beaumont, the Mæcenas of his boyhood, Bishop Fisher, of Salisbury, and his nephew, Archdeacon Fisher, Constable's most intimate friend, and, above all, Miss Maria Bicknell, whom he afterwards married. He did not sell a single landscape to a stranger until 1814, but was compelled to support himself by painting portraits and copies of paintings. But never discouraged, he worked on in his quiet way, knowing well that the future was his. At length

he found recognition in France. In 1823 three of his pictures were exhibited at the Salon, where they excited the greatest admiration, and were accorded the place of honor in the exhibition. The King of France sent Constable a gold medal, and the same honor was accorded to him in the following year at Lille. At last, in 1829, came the tardy honor of membership in the Royal Academy, but accompanied by an ungracious_remark on the part of the president, and too late to afford satisfaction to the painter.

Constable was a simple and noble character, who bore bravely discouragement and adversity, and never wavered in his ideal of art. His other great passion in life was his love for his wife, Miss Maria Bicknell, to whom, after many difficulties, he was secretly wedded in 1816. With a family of seven children, he was sometimes hard pressed for money, until he was at length relieved by his own inheritance and the ample inheritance of his wife. In 1827 he removed to his favorite Hampstead, where many of his best pictures were painted. He was greatly be reaved by the death of his wife in 1828, and died unexpectedly on March 30, 1837.

Constable was a great innovator in landscape painting, and he may be justly termed the father of the modern school. The old Dutch masters gained their effects by giving the forms of objects, placing more weight upon drawing than upon color, in which they achieved harmony by a uniform brown tone. Constable saw that landscape is rather a problem of light and air, and that its effect depends upon the light and shadow in which the objects are seen. He was the first to paint the subtle gradings of the atmosphere, and to show not only the objects themselves, but how he saw them. He laid on his colors fresh and fair, as they are in nature, applying to oil paintings the results of water-colors. His pictures are always harmonious in tone. always gives the effect of a landscape, suppress ing unimportant details-a tendency which increases with his later years. He frequently uses the palette knife, sometimes executing the entire picture by this means. In consequence of these teachings an able group of landscape painters arose in England in the forties and fifties, the most important of whom was David Cox (q.v.). But his greatest successors were the French painters of the Barbizon School.

He

The National Gallery in London contains the "Cornfield" (1826); "Valley Farm" (1835); and "Hay Wain." In South Kensington Museum are eight of his works, among which are "Deadham Mill" (1820); “Hampstead Heath" (1823); and "Water Meadows Near Salisbury." The Louvre has three good examples: "The Cottage," "Weymouth Bay" (1827), and the "Glebe Farm" Among the examples possessed by the Metropol itan Museum is an admirable landscape, "On the River Stour." acquired in 1906. Twenty of his chief works were published in 1833 in a series of etchings by David Lucas.

CON'STANCE (Ger. Konstanz or Kostnitz). A city of the Grand Duchy of Baden, situated on both banks of the Rhine, where it leaves Lake Constance, about 35 miles northeast of Zurich (Map: Germany, C 5). Remains of its ancient fortifications are still extant in the two old city gates. The cathedral, founded in the eleventh century, was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The carved oak portals and choir-stalls are fine specimens of wood-carving. It was here that Huss was sentenced by the council to be burned at the stake. Other ecclesiastical buildings of interest are the Church of Saint Stephen and the Dominican monastery, on an island, in which Huss was confined, and now used as a hotel. The notable secular buildings include the old Kaufhaus, containing the hall in which the conclave of cardinals met to elect a pope at the time of the famous council in 1417; the Rosgarten, the former guildhall of the butchers, containing an interesting museum; and the town hall, with the city archives. Constance has manufactures of linen and cotton, carpets, soap, and chemicals. Population, in 1890, 16,235; in 1900, 21,345. Constance was known to the Romans at In 570 it

least as early as the third century. was made the seat of a bishopric, which existed as one of the most powerful in Germany until its secularization in 1803. In 780 Constance was given municipal rights, and in 1192 was made a free imperial city. For joining the Schmalkaldie League it was deprived of its imperial privileges in 1548 and presented to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. In 1806 it became a part of the Grand Duchy of Baden. Consult Geschichte der Bischöfe von Konstanz (Innsbruck, 1894-96).

CON'STANCE. (1) Daughter of the Emperor and eventually the wife of King Alla, in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale. (2) The mother of Prince Arthur, in Shakespeare's King John. (3) Nonesuch's daughter, enamored of Lovely, in Dryden's Wild Gallant. (4) The heroine of Brome's The Northern Lass. (5) Fondlove's daughter and Wildrake's mistress, in Knowles's comedy The Love Chase. (6) The daughter of the Provost, later proved a serf, in G. W. Lovell's Provost of Bruges.

CONSTANCE, or CUSTANCE, DAME CHRISTIAN. A rich and beautiful widow in Udall's play Ralph Roister Doister.

which then (April, 1415), under the lead of Jean de Gerson (q.v.), declared itself the highest authority of Christendom and above the Pope. John was deposed and condemned to imprisonment for life. Gregory XII. voluntarily withdrew, and Benedict XIII. was deposed and retired to Spain, where he spent the remainder of his life, without power or influence. The election of a new Pope was temporarily postponed. Huss was condemned after a turbulent trial, and burned at the city gate, July 6, 1415. Jerome of Prague was also condemned and perished at the stake, May 30, 1416. The movement for reform came to nothing. A beginning had been made, when the cardinals, with the help of the French, succeeded (November, 1417) in electing Otto Colonna (Martin V.) Pope, who brought the proceedings to an end with some slight concessions. Consult: Richtenthal, Kronik des Konziliums in Konstanz (Augsburg, 1533; new ed. Tübingen, 1882); Leufant, History of the Council of Constance (Eng. trans., London, 1730); Finke, Forschungen und Quellen zur Geschichte des Konstanzer Konzils (Paderborn, 1889). See JOHN XVIII.; GREGORY XII.; BENEDICT XIII.; MARTIN V.; HUSS, JOHN; JEROME OF PRAGUE.

CONSTANCE, LAKE (named from the city of Constance, Ger. Konstanz, or Kostnitz, Lat. Constantia; German Bodensee, formerly Bodemsee, Bodmensee, Bodmansee, from the castle of Bodman on its shores, ML. Lacus Podamicus, Mare Podanum, Lat. Lacus Brigantinus, Lacus Venetus et Acronius). A lake of glacial origin, situated at the north base of the Alps and forming a portion of the boundary between Switzerland and Austria (Vorarlberg) on the south, and the German States of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria on the north (Map: Switzerland, D 1). It is on the course of the Rhine, which enters from the south and flows out in a westerly direction. Lake Constance extends northwest and southeast, and at its northwest end forks into a northern prolongation known as Ueberlinger See, which has a broad connection with the main lake; and into a southern fork, called the Lower Lake (Untersee), for merly known as the Zeller See, connected with the main lake by a narrow channel, 600 to 1600 feet wide, and only two and one-half miles long. The outlet of the lake is at the foot of this arm. The height of its surface is about 1300 feet above sea-level; the length of the lake is about 40 miles; the greatest breadth about nine miles; the length of shore line 160 miles, and the area 208 square miles. The greatest depth is 906 feet. The water of the lake is subject to sudden rises of from three to twelve feet, due to the melting of the snows. While the Rhine from the south is the main affluent, a number of minor streams discharge into the lake, nearly all of them on the northeast side. Among these tributaries are the Bregenzer Ach, Leblach, Argen, Schussen, Steinach, Ach of Uhldingen, and Stockach.

The lower lake is covered with ice nearly every winter, but it is only rarely, in an extreme winter, that the surface of the main lake becomes frozen. The lake contains twenty-six varieties of fish, among them salmon and salmon trout, and twenty-two species of shell-fish. The shores are hilly and picturesque. The land is productive and in great part under cultivation, but extensive woodlands still remain. Lake Con

stance formerly extended much farther south than at present, and even within historic times, in the fourth century, it extended as far as Rheineck (Rheinegg). The towns on the shores of Lake Constance are Bregenz, Lindau, Friedrichshafen, Ueberlingen, Constance, Arbon, and Rorschach. Steamboats navigate the lake, and railways follow its shores.

CON'STANS. In the old romances, a King of Britain, and grandfather of Arthur.

CONSTANS, FLAVIUS JULIUS. A Roman Emperor (A.D. 337-50). He was the youngest son of Constantine the Great (by Fausta), and was born A.D. 323 (or 320). He was made Crown Prince (Cæsar) in 333, and became Emperor together with his brothers Constantine and Constantius, on the death of their father in A.D. 337. Constans received the government of Italy, Illyricum, and Africa. In 340, however, war broke out between the brothers and Constantine was killed near Aquileia. Constans now ruled also his brother's dominions. He was killed by a soldier of the self-proclaimed Emperor, Magnentius, January, 350.

CONSTANS, kôN'stäN', JEAN ANTOINE ERNEST (1833-). A French statesman, born at Béziers. He was appointed Under-Secretary of State in the Freycinet Cabinet in 1879, and was Minister of the Interior in the Freycinet and Ferry Cabinets (1880 and 1881). After serving for one year as Governor-General of Indo-China, he was compelled in 1888 to resign this position as incompatible with his duties as a Deputy. From 1889 to 1892 he was again Minister of the Interior (in the Cabinets of Tirard and Freycinet), and during this period his vigorous meas ures served to overthrow Boulangism. In 1897 he was elected to the Senate, and in the following year received an appointment as Ambassador to Constantinople.

CONSTANT, KON'stäN', JEAN JOSEPH BENJAMIN (1845-1902). A French painter, born in Paris, June 10, 1845. In 1866 he obtained a municipal prize entitling him to free instruction in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and he was besides this a pupil of Cabanel. In 1872 he went to Morocco, where he painted a series of Oriental scenes. Among his chief works of this character are the "Last Rebels" (now in the Luxembourg Gallery), and the "Thirst," and "Les Chérifas." His large canvas, "The Entrance of Mahomet II. into Constantinople," received a medal in 1876. All these works show him to be a fine colorist and a master of technique. After 1880 he changed his manner, devoting himself to mural decorations and to portraits. The most prominent examples of the former are a great plafond in the Hôtel-de-Ville, Paris, entitled "Paris Convoking the World," and his paintings in the New Sorbonne, representing "Literature," "The Sciences," and the "Academy of Paris." He painted important mural decorations in other cities of France, and was distinguished also as a portrait painter. A good example of his portraiture is "Mon Fils André," which took the medal of honor at the Salon in 1896. His more recent sitters include Pope Leo XIII and Queen Alexandra of England, 1901; Lord Savill and M. de Blowitz, 1902. Constant was made Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1894. He visited the United States several times, and painted a number of portraits, now in private possession. The Metro